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Dear Yogis!

Join us in May for a 30 day challenge to lift your body + soothe your soul.

What we have heard from you is that in times of stress yoga has helped. In times of overwhelm, breathing has calmed. And in times of isolation having a community, even a virtual one, has been a lifeline.

We hear it and we feel it.

Between May 1 – May 30 make time each day to commit to your practice in a way that supports you best at this time.

If you like to sweat out the stress choose Power or Hiit. If you need to calm and relax choose meditation or yin.

We will not be judging the length or intensity of your practice. Know that taking 5 minutes to breathe deeply in awareness, to create space for whatever feelings are already there and to offer yourself comfort and compassion counts as a practice.

In fact it might be the hardest one there is.

How to participate

If possible print it out at home and put it somewhere visible. If you’ve got stickers (we know you love them!) get them ready. If you don’t have stickers, any marker will do. Each day you’ll mark when you practice. If you don’t have a printer, don’t worry. We’ll share ways to track yourself digitally.

Take classes

Aim for daily practice. Remember you can choose from all the classes on Afterglow Online – VIMEO ($25 per month) or any of the complimentary INSTAGRAM + FACEBOOK LIVES offered by our teachers. If you choose one our teachers, please consider donating if they offer that option.

Post your progress

Aim to do some form of practice each day. Mark off the days you practice and tag us whenever you get one in. Take a photo of your calendar and tag us and the teachers on instagram and facebook. If you do not use social media you can email us weekly at info@afterglowstudio.ca

Follow us online.

We’ll be announcing a lot over social. We will also be sending out regular emails. Make sure to follow us at on Instagram and Facebook. Plus sign up for our newsletter and make sure liz@afterglowstudio.ca is added to your contact list.

Check this page regularly for the most up-to-date schedule. For now, please see below!

Angela Yazbek is a staple in our Beaches + Afterglow community. With her commitment to creating accessible and enjoyable yoga, she has grown her classes into inclusive, SOULful, and nurturing practices. Angela’s honesty, and authenticity is what draws us to her, and we are grateful for this extremely open and raw share.

“True yoga is not about the shape of your body, but the shape of your life.”

It has taken me many, many years to finally and fully understand these words. Years of forcing my body into a shape that it was never meant to have. Years of restricting food and the uncontrollable urges to overeat that inevitably come along with it. Nights of shame around a life I was not in denial of— but unwilling to change.

Many years to understand that yoga doesn’t care. Yoga wasn’t requiring any of this, even though I believed it did.

Worshipping the holy grail of a perfectly thin body did not improve my yoga practice but it did hurt every single relationship in my life.

With my husband. With my 4 boys. With my friends. Most importantly, it damaged my relationship with my own body, my own mind, my own heart.

I called it health. I called it self-care. I called the strict adherence to food rules a “kindness” to myself.

An important part of my practice, in fact. But all the while I knew.

Deep down, when I could muster a rare, quiet moment in my body, I knew.

And you do too.

This wasn’t the body I was meant to have.

And yet, I persisted. Through chaturangas and cleanses. Downward dogs and detoxes. With just a little more effort and a little more time on my mat, I believed someday, somehow, I would settle the score with yoga. I would be in the thin body that it demanded of me, if only I could try a little harder.

What I didn’t understand then was that yoga wasn’t even keeping score. It didn’t care if my belly was flat or round. It didn’t look twice if I had gained weight. In fact, it applauded when finally, after decades of trying so hard to reign myself in, I let the restrictions go and let my body take up the space it had always craved.

My anxiety, my constantly revved up nervous system, my inability to settle my mind – – all these things that I spent years, no, decades, in therapy working through, all these things I believed were just my burdens to bear — fell alway. Literally overnight.

Once I started doing the terrifyig thing that felt impossible to do — feeding myself enough food.

More food than I believed this body needed.

And yoga stood up and cheered.

Yoga was happy for me to simply inhabit my body exactly as it was, exactly as it is on any given day.

Yoga just wants me to show up on the mat, show up for myself and trust in the practice.

So what I have come to realize is this:

If your belly is flat or round, yoga doesn’t care. If your weight is higher than it was a year ago, yoga doesn’t even notice.

If your skin has aged and you see lines on your body that you don’t recognize, trust me on this, yoga could not give a shit.

It’s National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and we have chosen to feature STRONG, EMPOWERING, and RESILIENT women who are courageous enough to share their stories about ED’s and more, and offer their own experiences with the hopes of helping others.

Sarah Back has been a part of the Glow Crew since we opened our doors in 2016, first on the front desk and teaching our kids yoga classes, and now as a main part of our teaching CREW as a Power and Vinyasa Flow Teacher. She is positive and inspiring, and constantly uses her life lessons as a guide to lead her classes. Sarah’s story, we are sure, will resonate with some of you. Thank you Sarah for your brave and honest post, and thank you for seeing us. XO

Dear Resilient Sister,

I see you.

I see you holding it together.

I see you fitting the pieces of the puzzle.

I see you caring for others first, and yourself last.

I see you having the back and forth conversations about your body and what it should, or should not look like.

I see you rising when the odds are stacked against you.

You see, I too have risen.

This Is My Story-

In the days following my final varsity basketball game, as university graduation was in my near future, I developed a complex relationship with my body.

It started slowly.

One day I decided I would count my calories, and the next thing I knew restricted eating became my new best friend. Then came the over exercising. I had now found an unbelievable pair; restricted eating and running. Naturally, the runs became my new obsession. Each run had an agenda, to loose the weight I believed I had gained. When that pair no longer worked the way I wanted them to, I introduced bulimia. Ah ha, that was my perfect trifecta.

Fast forward two years. With the worst of my eating disorder and a move across the country under way, I knew I had to make some drastic changes. I Googled for help, as one naturally does, and what I typed across the keyboard surprised me; “Yoga Energy Exchange Programs in Edmonton.” What? Yoga? I had never even done a yoga class before that Google search. To my luck Moksha Studio (now under a new name) was hiring. I applied, I got the position, and there I was, three days a week, two bus rides to the studio and two bus rides back to my apartment, changing the course of my life.

Yoga became an integral part of my resilience program. I felt the connection to my body that I had once lost. I felt purpose, I felt challenge, and was often humbled by just how damn hard a downward dog really was.

I stepped out of my competitive world as an athlete, and stepped into a world of acceptance, community, and intention. My story of resilience is not unique. I have seen firsthand the women in my circle persevere time and time again. Not just from eating disorders, but from what life has thrown their way.

These Are Their Stories-

My three dearest, and closet friends have all lost their fathers to cancer.

One friend, at the age of 22 walked into the hospital one morning, where she worked as a nurse, and twenty minutes later was admitted as a patient. She was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. For over two months she was using a tracheostomy to breathe. She lost mobility in her arms, and legs due to the disease attacking her nervous system.

I have witnessed a family member stand up for her actions while others attacked her character.A friend who is a new mother had sleepless nights, and moments of doubt as she navigated her new purpose. I stood in solidarity as a friend held space for loved ones who suffered from addiction.I have watched my friends get through heartbreak in relationships and divorce.

I attribute my resiliency to my mother, who at the age of 28 became the primary caregiver to my father who suffered a debilitating stroke. She spent her days caring for her husband, and raising two young boys, all the while working full- time as an elementary school teacher. Today, she is still my father’s caregiver. She is my hero.

Through adversity these women, my family, and I, have begun the ongoing journey of recovery.

In closing, this post is for the badass women around the world who everyday put one foot in front of another. The women who show resilience all the while surrendering to the fall apart. The women who recognize the strength in showing their emotions. The women who have the fortitude to keep going.

2 weeks into the 30-day challenge, your inner voice might be less focussed on cultivating intention and the glory of finishing 30 classes in 30 days and more prone to questioning what you got yourself into.

If that’s happening to you please know this is normal. Challenging our bodies and working with intention is hard.

It’s normal for resistance to come up.

Resistance?

Yes resistance.

The truth is if there wasn’t resistance you would already be living your intention.

We repeat for clarity and emphasis.

If there wasn’t resistance you would already be living your intention.

And when you meet that resistance, which can show up as self doubt, procrastination, judgement, comparison or even anxiety, you might want to give up.

Because resistance is the easy path.

Resistance is the path you already know.

Resistance is all wrapped up in the old thoughts, emotions, habits you regularly have which are largely unconscious and automatic. Resistance is the pathway your neurons are already used to travelling.

So what’s the way out?

Step One

Take a moment to congratulate yourself on how far you’ve come already! Seriously give yourself a pat on the back. High five yourself. Take a moment to be proud of what you’ve done already.

Step Two

Recognize that there are two parts of you. The part of you that longs for your intention and the part of you that longs to resist it.

Simply acknowledging that there are two sides of us can be helpful.

Liz Gilbert’s Letter to Fear talks about this duality. She talks about inspiration vs fear but you can just as easily replace the words with intention vs resistance.

Read her letter here.

Then acknowledge your own resistance, your own fear. Make a call. Take a stand. Make a commitment.

So why are we going on about intention anyway?

Turns out there’s some emerging science proving the wisdom behind what the yogis intuited so long ago. Intention works.

A number of studies show that what we think about affects the structure of our brain. For example, in a simple study done by John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, participants were asked to decide whether they would like to add a set of numbers or subtract them.

Even before participants were shown the numbers, different parts of their brain started to light up depending on whether their intention was to add or subtract.

Our brain starts working even before we’ve taken a step.

William A. Tiller, a professor emeritus at Stanford University, argues: “For the last 400 years, an unstated assumption of science is that human intention cannot affect what we call physical reality. Our experimental research of the past decade shows that, for today’s world and under the right conditions, this assumption is no longer correct.”

Our intention creates our reality.

So how can we continue to prime our brain so it’s aligned with what we really want.

The truth is if we were already living our intention we wouldn’t be longing for it. And unfortunately, old habits die hard. Our busy world will continue to pull us back into old habitual ways of being which may no longer serve us.

Keep on coming back to your intention.

Continue to use your physical yoga practice during the warrior challenge as a way to remind yourself of your intention.

If you’d like to go deeper you can remind yourself of your intention throughout the day as well with this easy exercise that comes from Leadership Coach, Brendon Burchard.

It’s a simple yet powerful intention practice that can be incorporated into your day. You can do it every time you sit at your desk, whenever you make a coffee or before a bathroom break. If you’d like to increase the frequency of your intention practice, you can set a timer on your phone and do it hourly.

RELEASE TENSION. SET INTENTION.

Close your eyes for a minute or two

Quickly scan your body and notice any areas of tension. Take a few deep full breaths, focusing on a longer exhale. Repeat the word RELEASE and exhale out any accumulated tension.

Remind yourself of your INTENTION. Continue to breathe deeply as you think about what you are working on and longing for. Say your intention softly and try to practice feeling the energy behind the words as well.

The above exercise need only take a few minutes but with repetition and consistency it can be a very powerful practice.

We would love to hear how things are going for you! Share what you are learning about intention in the comments field below or post about it social using the hashtag #30daywarrior.

Remember in our teen years when hours-long phone calls into the night were the norm, when we’d meet at one another’s lockers to vent, rant, and rage about the injustices done to us in first period math class, or when time spent together was a screen-free experience of connection and support? Maybe aside from cottage “girls getaways”, or spa retreats available to the most fortunate few, as we age, our busy work/family lives can make it increasingly challenging to have the opportunity to meet in sisterhood with other women on a regular basis.

While we need the support of one another in our teen years to help us get through the pulling tides of emotions and the aches of learning who we are, don’t we need this just as much or even more in later life when we are increasingly isolated in our homes or routines, when we find ourselves confronted with the often shocking limitations of knowledge and research relating to women’s health, when we feel frustration that no one told us how to deal with our aging bodies and brains, aging parents, changing partnerships, shifting friendships, or existential crises? That’s not to say that men who are near and dear to us cannot offer us support and care, but there is something profound about sharing our experiences as women with one another that, like a wave of a magic wand, has the ability to make us feel less alone or “crazy,” and maybe even understood.

To be honest, I could have used a women’s circle when I was in my early 30s, a time when I was just starting to feel a twinge that my low self-esteem, body image issues, and eating disorder may not need to persist for the rest of my life; this was also a time when my partnership faced massive challenges, when I was trying to sort out this whole new motherhood gig, and was still losing sleep over “what do I want to be when I grow up?” I did seek out women friends of different ages and experiences, and would dig into my schedule for holes so that one by one we could meet for coffee, or chat over the phone. I was only awakening to the value of such connections, to what a hug or a simple “yes, I’ve been there!” could shift..

Now that I’m in my 40s, I know for certain that the way to feel less alone in the waves is to wave to one another: “I see you”, and “me too.” Whether we want to admit it or not, the way we are situated and thus experience the world is different, as are our workplace challenges, and familial demands; and (for those of us who are cis-gendered) our hormonal fluctuations can dramatically impact our well-being in a way that has not been of historical interest to medical science beyond “PMS” and “hysteria.” I feel that women of all ages, experiences, and backgrounds can benefit in some way from being around one another, from feeling a sense of community, from holding space and listening to feeling safe and openly sharing. It is from my own desires for this that I’ve created the Glow Goddess Circle.

The Glow Goddess Circle is a special 4-part workshop commencing September 16. For more information about the circle or to register, click here.

They often come to their first class looking for a way to create more freedom in their bodies – to stretch legs tight from other sports or a back sore from sitting at a desk too long. And yes – yoga is an excellent way to become more mobile. One of the reasons I was first drawn to yoga myself was to help stretch my hamstrings, rendered tight from running.

But what I have found over time is that yoga offers so much more than flexible legs and a long spine.

Yoga is an ancient practice ideally suited to our modern times.

What I’ve found to be more profound than the effect yoga has had on my muscles is the effect it has had on my nervous system.

Our nervous systems were not designed for our modern world. We have evolved to maintain short bursts of sympathetic fight or flight activation followed by lengthy periods of parasympathetic rest and recovery.

For many of us, bursts of stress are chronic and consistent, and our periods of rest and recovery are too short and shallow.

Over time, if this continues, we get burnout. Our nervous systems and bodies can only handle elevated amounts of stress for so long.

I learned this the hard way.

Due to the pace of my family life (four young kids busy in activities) and the start of a new business (one I love but not without stress), as well as recent personal family concerns, my nervous system was overloaded and went into shutdown. It became fragile and sensitive — I’m still working daily to get it back to optimal health.

It’s one of the reasons I have recently returned to a more consistent yoga practice. What I have learned the hard way is that we need to have some kind of regular practice to take care of our nervous systems.

It involves self awareness — learning about our own automatic and embodied stress responses — as well as self care — learning what we need to soothe, calm, and regulate our systems — so that over time we can increase our capacity to deal with stress.

If you can’t reduce stress, you need tools to handle it.

The truth is that reducing stress is often not as easy as it sounds. I have four kids; I can’t reduce stress unless I get rid of them! (not happening at least not on most days). But I need tools and resources to help me deal with elevated levels of stress.

The more I learn about how to care for my nervous system, the more I see that yoga has inherent aspects meant to help achieve just that.

Yoga can help.

Dristhi, asana, pranayama, chanting and mantra are tools to help us manage stress.

Stanley Rosenberg, a cranial sacral therapist based in Denmark, and author of Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve has found in his practice that simply having clients change the direction of their eye gaze can help tone the vagal nerve. (A key cranial nerve responsible for helping to shift the body out of fight or flight)

In yoga we call eye gaze drishti.

Stephan Porges, a professor of Psychiatry and author of The Polyvagal Theory has found that listening to soothing sounds or working the muscles of throat (through singing or the playing of wind instruments) can help tone the vagal nerve and cue the body to relax.

In yoga we play with chanting.

And numerous forms of bodywork including Feldenkrais, The Alexander Technique, and Structural Integration have found that removing kinks and curves from the spine, learning to support its optimal alignment can help cue the nervous system (whose perceptive fibers run along the length of that said spine) that the environment is safe and the body can relax.

In yoga, as we bend, curve, and move ourselves into various asanas what we are really trying to do (above and beyond any fancy inversions or arm balances) is support the optimal alignment of our spines.

Additional ways that yoga supports our nervous systems are mantra (ex: I AM SAFE. I AM LOVED) and breath-work, particularly exercises focusing on both a full and complete breath as well as a longer exhale.

These are just some of the reasons I have fallen in love again with the practice of yoga. It offers so much more than just flexibility; it’s a prescription and a tool to help a person not only cope, but thrive, in our modern world.